A Chess Player's Best Friend, Part 2: Check Your Discovered Checks!

Last week we discussed one of the most powerful chess weapons: a discovered check. Today you can hone your tactical skills by solving our big test. These puzzles have many different tactical themes, but all of the combinations are based on discovered checks. The good thing about discovered checks is that, once you see a familiar pattern, it is usually easy to find a combo (Of course this is true for many other common tactical themes, like back rank checkmate for example).

Say, you've seen this game before:

Now, how much time will it take to solve the next puzzle? No more than 20 to 30 seconds I guess.

And now, without further ado, here are your test positions:

In the next game 39. Re7!, with a nasty threat 40.Rxg7!, would probably quickly decide the game in White's favor. Unfortunately, in his usual time trouble, GM Reshevsky played 39.Be5??. The punishment was swift...

Sometimes discovered checks decide the game early in the opening as we could see in the first part of the article, where we analyzed the famous trap in the Petroff Defense. The next two games feature the same Rossolimo variation of the Sicilian Defense and share the same quick result: